‘Shopaholic’ snubbed in mother’s will wins £160k from brother in court fight
A FORMER bank manager branded a “shopaholic” and cut out of her mum’s £325,000 will has won a court fight against her brother for half the cash.
Jean Clitheroe left daughter Susan Bond without a penny when she died, aged 76, in 2017.
Jean slammed her daughter’s alleged “spendthrift ways” and left nearly all her wealth to her estate agent son, John.
But after her mum’s death, Susan began a court feud with her brother, seeking to overturn the 2013 will and an earlier one in 2010, claiming her mum was too unhinged to draft them.
Now Judge John Linwood has handed Susan victory, after ruling that when Jean, who lived near Clacton-on-Sea, Essex, drew up her final will she was in the grip of several “insane delusions”.
They included the wrongful beliefs that Susan was a shopaholic and spendthrift who had stolen from her mother and neglected her.
Susan, 52, of nearby St Osyth, challenged the wills at the High Court in London, insisting that Jean was too mentally unhinged to make a rational decision.
Her barrister, Edward Hicks,
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argued that Jean had been suffering an acute grief reaction since the death of her beloved eldest daughter, Debra, who died of cancer aged 46 in 2009.
He said Jean was so devastated by Debra’s death that she stopped acting rationally and formed a deluded view that Susan had authorised too much pain relief when her sister was on her death bed.
John’s barrister, Henry Hendron, however insisted “strongwilled” Jean was of sound mind when made wills.
After a drawn-out trial of the “bitter family dispute”, Judge Linwood ruled out both of Jean’s wills, holding: “John has failed on the balance of probabilities to prove that Jean was not suffering from an affective disorder that she the
Susan, inset left, fought brother John, right, over the will made by Jean, in pink, centre, with her family
of the mind and was not suffering from delusions which affected her testamentary capacity when she made either will.”
His ruling means that Jean died intestate and her estate must be split equally between the two warring siblings.